I have constructed an argument for voluntary delegation systems based on democratic axioms, and an argument based on accuracy of representation. The former asserts that each citizen in a democracy has the right to vote on each issue that the collectivity considers, as well as the right to delegate to his first choice among willing representatives.The latter indicates that a voluntary delegation system ameliorates the information problems associated with both traditional direct democracy and traditional representative democracy. Further, I have suggested that voluntary delegation has the potential to increase political participation, reduce strategic incentives within the election process, and ameliorate the political principal-agent problem. I have also reviewed the literature on proxy voting systems (with and without the additional option of direct voting), and found that a great deal of room has been left for discussions of how these systems may be carried out in practice. Therefore I have provided practical suggestions for implementation, and I encourage other authors to continue this conversation by evaluating these proposals and suggesting further innovations and refinements.

In his 1969 article, “A Program for Direct and Proxy Voting in the Legislative Process”, James C. Miller III is also inspired by the promise of technology. He writes:

One marvels at the advancing technology of electronic computers, indicating devices, and recording equipment. Some, in fact, have predicted that within 20 or 30 years every home will have a console tied into a computer upon which the children do their homework, the housewife will make out her grocery list, and the husband will pay the family’s bills. Such a computer console also could be used to record political decisions, giving each voter an opportunity to cast his ballot on every issue and have it recorded through the machine.

Gender role issues aside, Miller’s proposal for direct and proxy voting is visionary. It is a true voluntary delegation system in that it allows for both a direct voting option and an unrestricted choice of representatives. Voters are able to vote independently on all issues, to “delegate proxy” to someone else on all issues, or to vote independently on some issues and to delegate proxy on others. (Miller notes that the proxy option is similar to stockholder voting systems in large corporations.) Since voters can change their proxies at will, those who serve as representatives may see their voting power fluctuate on a day-to-day basis.

Shubik (1970) is a response to Miller (1969). Shubik expects that advances in computer technology would lead to a system similar to Miller’s “in the next ten to twenty years”. (Forty-plus years later, it is interesting for us to ask why this has not in fact happened.) Shubik is not entirely negative about Miller’s proposal, but he is concerned that the political process might speed up to the point where those who “both think and read about political problems”, but are not part of the political elite, will no longer have enough time to influence those who vote but do not spend substantial time or effort thinking about how they will vote.

When choosing a person to whom his votes would be delegated, a citizen might find that there was no single individual who stood well above all the other public voters in terms of how much he trusted her, and how similar he expected her views to be to his own if both were fully informed. Therefore, I propose that each voter should have the option to form a ‘virtual committee’ from any number of public voters. The computer would then use their public votes to simulate a committee vote, and the outcome of this committee vote would determine his vote.

The purpose of continual consideration is to provide information in real time about which policy issues are in need of being revisited, and in the process to empower citizens by allowing them to take concrete action toward changing a policy. Of course, some government actions cannot be easily undone. Also, there may be a point at which juggling many issues at once becomes too difficult, or cycling through various options on an issue characterized by intransitive majority preferences becomes too costly. Therefore, some issues should not be subject to continual consideration.

The quality of discourse, and of democracy itself, depends not only on the allocation of formal voting power, but also on the quality of the media, the education system, etc. It is beyond the scope of this paper to explore ways to asses and improve these other factors, but clearly it is preferable if representatives of different political groups have an incentive to engage in substantive discussions with each other. To promote this, it would be valuable to have a system in which prominent issues under collective consideration are made the subject of a series of well-designed public debates, in which influential legislators and proxies are strongly encouraged to participate.

The proposals in this paper pertain primarily to the legislative branch of government and are not intended to eliminate the need for either a judicial branch or an executive branch. They aim for outcomes similar to majority rule under full information, and thus do not prevent a tyranny of the majority, which means that a judicial authority protecting the constitutional rights of minorities would be as valuable as ever. Similarly, an executive authority would still be valuable for its ability to employ a fairly consistent bureaucratic staff who would conduct policy in a fairly consistent manner, and for its ability to make some decisions more quickly than the legislative process would allow.

Consider the preferences and behavior of agents from the richer view introduced in section 6.1, which allows agents to adjust how much effort they spend acquiring knowledge. In this case, they will acquire more knowledge if doing so is more socially and personally rewarding, or if it is less costly. There are several avenues by which voluntary delegation may accomplish this. First, it would encourage grassroots discussion and organization, in that voters would know that they could potentially affect the outcome of votes directly, without the need to convince professional politicians to join their causes. Second, the public consideration of a few issues at a time, with added structure provided by the model voting platform, would provide a focus for political conversations. These conversations could help friends to pass the time and get to know each other better. They could help connect people who find each others’ ideas interesting. They could provide valuable opportunities for voters to improve reasoning and communication skills, and to reveal their own unique thought processes to each other. Third, with a much larger number of representatives to choose from, voters would be more likely to find one or more whom they agree with strongly and can take pride in choosing. This stands in contrast to traditional representative democracies in which many voters consider all viable candidates in many elections to be somewhat corrupt or otherwise objectionable, and thus can take little pride in any available choice. Fourth, citizens may be encouraged to serve as proxies in the hope of gradually gaining influence, which could potentially result in remuneration and perhaps even a seat in the legislature. Furthermore, individuals and organizations could cite statistics on how many people have used their model votes to gain respect in other arenas. […] While traditional representation typically requires voters to aggregate into large political parties which have extensive hierarchies and multiple competing factions, voluntary delegation allows groups of any size to take direct political action and to choose their own representatives.

E si arriva anche all'effetto anti-corruzione:

By promoting greater competition, voluntary delegation systems provide stronger incentives for politicians to perform well, and make it more expensive for special interests to ‘buy’ all of the viable candidates.

E i rischi del digitale:

The legitimacy of the system could be undermined in the absence of a means of verifying the accuracy of vote counts.

Since voluntary delegation effectively lowers the barriers to entry for representatives, it might allow some political ‘riffraff’ (that is, irresponsible demagogues and other types of undesirable politicalactors) to gain more official voting power than they could otherwise. However, the lowering of these barriers could also allow more voting power to go to genuinely civic-minded reformers and community leaders, who had good ideas about policy but who would be discouraged from running for office under traditional representation because of the personal and financial costs of political candidacy. Further, in a voluntary delegation system, voters would have the option of delegating to representatives whom they know and trust through direct experience, or through the recommendation of organic political communities. These additional sources of information could reduce the voters’ dependence on information provided by both paid ads and prior fame. In the case of paid ads, this could also reduce the extent to which representatives would need to rely on campaign contributions to be successful, which would in turn reduce politicians’ incentives to cater to moneyed interests at the expense of the public interest. With this said, the net effect cannot be made perfectly clear in the abstract, but rather depends on the concrete choices of actual citizens.